Andrée's Arctic Balloon Expedition

Summary

On 11 July 1897 three Swedes rose from Svalbard in a hydrogen balloon, the Örnen, to try to reach the North Pole, and did not return. In 1930 their last camp was found on the island of Kvitøya, with their bodies, notebooks and exposed film; how they died is still not known.

The men's own notes show that the balloon came down on the pack ice three days after the launch, that they spent the next 83 days walking and drifting on the ice, and that they went ashore on Kvitøya on 5 October 1897. After that the record thins out. Strindberg died first and was buried by the others. Andrée and Frænkel died in their tent. What killed them has been argued over ever since.

What is documented

The expedition. The engineer Salomon August Andrée planned to reach the North Pole by hydrogen balloon. His companions were Nils Strindberg and Knut Frænkel. At 1.46 p.m. on 11 July 1897 the balloon Örnen ("the Eagle") rose from Danskøya, as Strindberg noted. At the start the lower sections of all three guide ropes were lost. Store norske leksikon puts the loss at two-thirds of the drag line, after which the balloon could not be steered.

The landing. On 14 July gas leakage and icing brought the balloon down onto the pack ice at 82° 56' N, 29° 52' E, about 480 kilometres north-east of Danskøya.

The march. The three set out with heavily loaded sledges for the depot at Cape Flora in Franz Josef Land, then turned towards Sjuøyane, the Seven Islands, in northern Svalbard. They reached neither. On 2 October Strindberg recorded that their floe had broken up during the night close to their snow hut. On 5 October he wrote "Flyttat i land": moved ashore. They were on Kvitøya, the easternmost island of Svalbard.

The end. The notes that follow are few. The entries in Strindberg's almanac run to 17 October 1897. According to the account published in 1930, Strindberg had died before the others and was buried by them in a narrow cleft in the rock; Andrée and Frænkel died side by side inside the tent, apparently at the same time.

The find. On 6 August 1930 two sealers from the Norwegian vessel Bratvaag, Olav Salen and Karl Tusvik, came upon the camp. The Bratvaag was carrying a scientific expedition sent by Norges Svalbard- og Ishavs-undersøkelser, Norway's Svalbard and Arctic Ocean survey, and led by Gunnar Horn. The men found the expedition's canvas boat, loaded with equipment; a notebook bearing the words "Slädfärden 1897" ("The sledge journey 1897"); and, about 10 metres from the boat, a body lying against the rock. On the morning of 5 September a press expedition aboard the Isbjørn, whose account was written by Knut Stubbendorff, went ashore. Its finds, which included photographs and diaries, showed that Frænkel too had reached the island.

The film. The film was processed by John Hertzberg, who described the work in the 1930 publication. Eastman Kodak had set February 1898 as the deadline for developing it. The containers were partly filled with water and every film was soaked through. Developing it piece by piece, Hertzberg obtained, by his own account, about fifty pieces of film showing images of varying clarity, of which about twenty were clear enough to reproduce with suitable treatment.

Since 2018. Björn Lantz has published a series of papers in Polar Record on the expedition's route, decisions and ice drift. In 2024 Lantz, Bea Uusma and Michael Tjernström proposed that a tin holding Strindberg's last message to his fiancée, said to have been dropped from the balloon over the island of Fuglesongen, may have landed on neighbouring Klovningen instead; it has never been found. In March 2026 the Grenna Museum in Gränna, which exhibits the expedition's finds, reported that a sack of expedition clothing had been found in its archive after going unnoticed for many years. It includes the blue sweater, found beside Andrée, in which his large diary lay wrapped.

Leading explanations

How they came to be on Kvitøya (established). The notes, the photographs and the 1930 finds document the flight, the landing, the march and the move ashore. Lantz has argued that "two fundamental errors regarding where to go and what to bring sealed their fate", and that with lighter sledges and a course for the depot on the Seven Islands they could have survived. That is an argument about decisions, not about the cause of death.

The cause of death (unknown). Store norske leksikon, updated in July 2026, states that the cause of death is unknown ("Dødsårsaken er ukjent"). The Grenna Museum says that it "gäckar oss alltjämt": it still eludes us. The hypotheses:

• Carbon monoxide from the stove (argued by Vilhjalmur Stefansson in Unsolved Mysteries of the Arctic; not established). Stefansson held that Andrée and Frænkel died of carbon monoxide poisoning from their Primus stove inside the tent. He cited Yandell Henderson of Yale University, an authority on carbon monoxide, who having studied the published evidence "feels convinced that Andree and Fraenkel died of monoxide poisoning".
• Trichinosis from polar bear meat (speculation; not established). Store norske leksikon lists it, with carbon monoxide and suicide, among the speculations.
• A polar bear attack (proposed by the physician Bea Uusma in 2013; a hypothesis, not established). After studying the clothing and the descriptions of the remains, and visiting Kvitøya, Uusma proposed that a polar bear fatally wounded Strindberg, that Frænkel was badly hurt going to help him and later died of his injuries in the tent, and that Andrée was left alone. Store norske leksikon calls her analysis very thorough. It departs from the 1930 reading that Andrée and Frænkel died at the same time.
• Suicide (speculation; not established).

Current status

Partially explained. The disappearance is explained: the men's own notes and the 1930 finds account for the flight, the landing on 14 July 1897, the march and the move ashore on Kvitøya on 5 October 1897. Strindberg died first; Andrée and Frænkel died in the tent. The cause of their deaths is not known, and none of the hypotheses has prevailed. A cause supported by evidence rather than inference would move this record to Later explained. The Grenna Museum holds expedition material, including the clothing rediscovered in its archive in 2026.

Last reviewed: September 2026. Records are provisional. Where the evidence changes, the entry changes. Found an error? Tell us.